Northside Festival

Northside is a three-day music festival in Denmark’s second biggest city and the European Capital of Culture in 2017.

This year’s Northside Festival came with a twist – a luxury gin cocktail bar, decorated with wooden walls and floors, serving gin drinks you would have never imagined.

The ingredients on the menu were not quite what to expect in a gin bar in the middle of a festival. A gin-cocktail with popcorn is not the first one to pop into your head if ever running out of cocktail ideas. For those with a more traditional palate, a vermouth concoction was also on offer amid others.

The festival, although not as upbeat as last year’s festivals, was no disappointment. The calm Saturday schedule with Sigurrós, made people wonder if accidently Saturday and Sunday were swapped during planning. The Sunday programme was had a more of a Saturday-party vibe when people had started showing signs of the common festival side effect: a hangover. Which would have been perfectly matched with the Saturday programme, a perfect hangover programme.

There’s always next year.

One of Northside’s specialities is good food, and Northside ensures it’s more organic and sustainable every year. This year was no exception. Food was delicious, oven baked pizza with fresh salami and Danish cheese, moreish organic hot dogs and festival cheeseburgers with crispy Danish bacon.

Northside has been on an ambitious organic journey for the past years, by increasing the minimal organic share in food sold restaurants sell on the festival. This year they set a new record by providing 90% organic food and 75% organic drinks, putting the festival at forefront in Denmark as the most organic music event ever. It is the perfect match for the green festival-goer: organic burgers, organic beer and good music.

Another interesting trademark of Northside Festival is that it is incredibly safe. If you are tired of being pushed around, getting bottles thrown in your head as well as some of the more unhygienic aspects including camping for four days and using portable toilets, you probably want to try out Northside Festival. It is a festival where the head of security this year called the audience ‘nearly perfect.’ Although he mentioned minor incident where a curious someone tried to jump over the fence without a ticket. But it was ‘completely understandable,’ with an atmosphere so fantastic.

This is nothing but a well-organised festival with lines for the toilet and the bars in a short supply. Beer prices went up from last year, but instead you could watch yourself drink beer in a 360 degree video, Northside is the first festival in Denmark to produce 360 degree videos.

Pandeia left the festival happy, and already looking forward to the next year, perhaps with a more fitting programme for each day.